List of films considered the best

While there is no general agreement upon which is the greatest film of all time, many publications and organizations have tried to determine the films considered the best. Each film listed here has topped a notable survey—whether a popular poll or a poll among film reviewers—or is the highest ranked exponent of its genre or country in such a survey. Many of these sources focus on American films or were polls of English-speaking film-goers, but those considered the greatest within their respective countries are also included here. Many films are widely considered among the best ever made, whether they appear at #1 on each list or not. For example, many believe that Orson Welles' Citizen Kane is the best film ever made, and it appears as #1 on AFI's Best Movies list, but it was displaced from the #1 position by Vertigo in the 2012 Sight & Sound decennial critics' poll.

None of the surveys that produced these citations should be viewed as a scientific measurement of the opinions of film viewers. Each may suffer the effects of vote stacking or skewed demographics. Internet-based surveys have a self-selected audience of unknown participants. The methodology of some surveys may be questionable. Sometimes (as in the case of the American Film Institute) voters were asked to select films from a limited list of entries.

Critics and filmmakers

Sight & Sound poll

Every decade, the British film magazine Sight & Sound asks an international group of film professionals to vote for the greatest film of all time. The Sight & Sound accolade has come to be regarded as one of the most important of the "greatest ever film" lists. The American film critic Roger Ebert described it as "by far the most respected of the countless polls of great movies—the only one most serious movie people take seriously."[1]

Citizen Kane (1941) by Orson Welles was voted #1 in the five Sight & Sound critics' polls from 1962 to 2002. A separate Sight & Sound poll of established film directors, held for the first time in 1992, also placed Citizen Kane at #1 in 1992 and 2002.[2]

Brussels World's Fair's international poll

The Brussels World's Fair, organized in 1958, offered the occasion for the organization by thousands of critics and filmmakers from all over the world, of the first universal film poll in history. Sergei Eisenstein's 1925 film, Battleship Potemkin, was ranked in the top position.[3]

Rotten Tomatoes

In the Rotten Tomatoes aggregate score rankings, The Wizard of Oz (1939) is in 1st place as of 28 November 2016[update]. The Third Man—ranked in 2nd place overall—is the highest ranked film with a 100 percent rating.[4]

Metacritic

Metacritic lists over 9,000 films ranked by aggregate score, which sees The Godfather ranked in the top position as of 27 November 2016[update]. The Godfather is one of only three films on the Metacritic list to attain a perfect 100 score, along with Boyhood and Three Colors: Red.[5]

Hollywood

In a survey of the Hollywood region undertaken by The Hollywood Reporter in 2014, in which every studio, agency, publicity firm and production house was ballotted, over 2000 industry workers voted The Godfather (1972) the greatest film.[6]

Audience polls

The Godfather (1972) was voted #1 by Entertainment Weekly's readers in 1999[8] and voted as #1 in a Time Out readers' poll in 1998.[9] The film was also voted as the "Greatest Movie of All Time" in September 2008 by 10,000 readers of Empire magazine, 150 people from the movie business and 50 film critics.[10] Its sequel The Godfather Part II (1974) was voted best movie ever by TV Guide readers[11] in 1998.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001–2003) was voted the most popular film of all time by an audience poll for the Australian television special My Favourite Film[14] and by a poll cast by 120,000 German voters for the TV special "Die besten Filme aller Zeiten" (German "The best films of all time") in 2004.[15]

Blade Runner (1982) was voted the best science fiction film by a panel of scientists assembled by the British newspaper The Guardian in 2004.[41] In New Scientist, Blade Runner was voted "all-time favourite science fiction film" in the readers' poll in 2008.[42]

Czech Republic

Marketa Lazarova (1967) was voted the all-time best Czech-Slovak movie in a 1998 poll of 54 Czech and Slovak film critics and publicists.[53] The film was once again voted the all-time best Czech movie in a 2011 poll by the critics.[54][need quotation to verify]

Cosy Dens (1999) is the best Czech film according to readers' poll by Reflex magazine in 2011.[55]

Ireland

Israel

Giv'at Halfon Eina Ona (1976) was voted "Favorite Israeli Film of All Time" in a 2004 poll by Ynet, the platform of the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot. The film received votes from 25,000 web users.[68]

Slovakia

The Shop on Main Street (1965) was named the second best film in the 100 years of Czech-Slovak cinema in a poll of 54 filmmakers, critics, and theorists. It was the best placed Slovak film in this poll.[53] It should be noted that there is a controversy whether the Film is Slovak or Czech.[80]

Turkey

Yol (1982) by Şerif Gören was selected as the best Turkish film in a 2003 poll undertaken by Ankara Sinema Derneği (Ankara Association for Cinema Culture) of people interested in cinema professionally.[84]

Ukraine

United Kingdom

The Third Man (1949): Voted best British film ever by 1000 industry professionals, academics, and critics in a British Film Institute poll conducted in 1999.[85] Highest ranked British entry and #2 overall on the Rotten Tomatoes list of the best films of all time with a 100% rating based on 76 reviews as of 4 December 2016[update].[4]